Wichita eagle., 1887-09-08
MANS DEVELOPMENT.
CHANNELS THROUGH WHICH FLOW
HEREDITARY INFLUENCES.

HGREDt ARY INFLUENCES.
What Wonder that Man is a Bundle @
Observation-Disclosures ANON
the Railing Classes--High breeding O
the Jergs-Peruvians.
How diverse the influences of heredit,
must be can perhaps be learned from consid
Grafton of the vastneSs of the number o
the channels through which they hav,
reached the man who lives today The diff
ferent classes of people in existence product
from two and one-haf to three and three
fourths generations per century. Assuming
that there have been three generations Il
each 100 years and that there had been no in
ternlarryinG of blood relations, a person
would have had two parents, four grand
parents and eight great grandparents, four
teen in all, in the first 100 years. In the two
centuries the number of ancestors would
have been 12G; in the five there would have
been 6, 534 and in the ten centuries there
would have lived 2, l9S, GS:}. 646 human beings
whose diverse traits OF body and character
whose impulses, feelings and thoughts have
mingled to produce tx mau OF today
Yet these generations DO not even extend
back to the beginning Of the Chrisiian era
and before that lie century on century before
the dawn of written history is reached And
still beyond that stretch diIuly generations
innumerable along the path which led ZAP
from the age of the brutes from whom man
Is descended. What wonder that man is q
bundle of Inconsistencies; that he, staggering
under this load of instincts inherited from
ancestors who were only yesterday savage
robbers and cutthroats, is forever struggling
upward toward u high ideal, only often to
slip and lose much of the progress he has
made
OF the nlultitudeS of facts which might
have thrown strong light on the laws that
govern the development of man, only very
few have been intelligently observed and re-
corded, even by the nations that consider
themselves the most highly civilized It is
moro than possible that ancient peoples may
have noted such facts and derived from them
rules for Fastening the improvement of their
kind, or at least for maintaining the su-
premacy of the initiated over the masses.
AThe incestuous marriages of the ruling
classes of the oldest known civilizations seem
to have been in obedience to well defined
instinct and power of ruling would be iuten-
sified and perpetuated. Before the time of
Ptolemy l the Egyptians were divided into
castles, the members of which married within
their own classes. 1t seems to be certain that
the wedding OF brothers to sisters was by no
means SO uncommon as to excite comment,
for kings and mobiles cuStomarily married
their full sisters, nieces and cousins that the
veins of their descendants might not be de-
filed by ignoble blood OF thirteen Ptole-
mics seven married their sisters, two welded
their nieces, two married full cousins and one
his niece-in-law.
The custom of marrying near kin was by no
means confined to Egypt The founders Of
the tribes of Israel obeyed the laws of high
breeding, even iHreStuously. The patriarch
Abraham took his lalf sister Sarah to wife:
Major welded his niece Micah; the case OF
Lot and his daughters needs only reference:
Jacob mated with his first cousins
Leah and Rachel Esau married his
first cousin, Mahslath, because his parents
insisted SO strongly on his strength
ening the blood of the family. and
to this day the descendants Of those
worthless are exceedingly exclusive in regard
to marriage connections. The result is that
the Hebrews are people III whom peculiar
characteristics have become so intensified and
engthened that they are an almost ccu-
slant and irresistible factor in human affairs.
wherever the Jewish race has hitherto been
studied" says H. Boudin, Kit has shown itself
governed by statistical laws as to births.
deaths. and the proportion of the sexes en-
tirely different from those which govern the
surrounding communities
But the lessons of hereditary influences
were studied by nations that were old before
the Hebrews began to have a history, and
those lessons Were taught in widely separated
parts of the globe. In India caste regulations
have done much more than forbid marriage
between members of different castles. In
China the most careful attention is paid TO
hereditary influences. Cation saws: There
the system OF examination is notoriously strict
and far reaching, and boys of promise are
sure TO be passed on from step to step until
they have reached the highest level of which
they are capable" 1t is said that in China
the parents and even the grandparents Of the
offender against the laws are punished Jointly
with the criminal f0r his wrong doing. So
convinced are the AfghanS OF the high value
OF pure blood that they show marked con-
tempt for man who cannot trace his pedi-
gree clearly for at least seven generations.
and in this their neighborS of Beloochistan
resemble the Afghans. The Mingrelese of the
Black sea, the gypsies of Egypt, and the
mobiles and royal families of POLYNESIA follow
the fashion of inbreeding, as did the ancient
Germans, Danes, Icelanders and Persians.
Before the reign of the first of the incas the
PeruvianS, who, III many particulars if not
S,o oil ,lio,,t
closely resembled the Egyptians, married
their own mothers, sisters, and even daugh-
tiers. GarcillaSo de Ia Vega says that the
Peruvians taught that the sun married the
moon, his sister, and that from this union the
incas descended. Therefore the sister of
each inca was ever afterward chosen for his
chief wife, and her son was successor to the
throne. The avowed purpose was 10 ALWAYS
keep pure the blood of the Peruvian royaI
line. No female of that line was ever per-
nitted to wed vaSSal IL further evidence
were required to prove that in these and
other affairs the ancient Peruvians acted in
accordance with laws derived from long con-
tinued observation and careful study of hered-
itary influences, that evidence may be found
in the fact that in Peru at that time trades
and offices were usually hereditary; no one
could leave his home for another, ana men,
bers of each community We're required TO
marry within that community; consequently
the greater part of the marriages were be-
tween near kin. The result showed the wis
dom of those who had studied the influences
of continued breeding in one line for the de-
velopment of peculiar faculties, and demon
strates the soundneSS OF the laws they en-
acted; for the ancient PeruvianS attained
skill in the arts and knowledge of philosophy
and morality probably equal TO that of any
s>.xi thar, in